Old balloon tires vs. the modern tires and rims

[famvburg]

I was looking at some older AATV pics and my GI Joe AT AATV and was wondering, why did the manufactorers go to the rims and tires we run now as opposed to the old balloon tires? Some vides of older machines seem to show the old balloons to be a lot more forgiving. I've never seen one of the old ones in person so if I did, it might be self explanatiory. Can the older style even be gotten today? Thanks.

[amphibious drew]

You can find the old balloon tires used, and yes they were more forgiving on smaller axles and provide a better ride quality as well as increased floatation. No you can't get them new anymore, and I believe industry changes is what led to this. The Gotcha was the first machine to use modern tire on rim setup and it was advertised as a positive selling point. Now you can just replace the tire and don't have to throw the entire assembly away. As the 5 lug pattern became more standard on our machines and the introduction to suspension on modern ATV's the market for balloon tires became less viable for any manufacturer to support.

[North Country Tough]

I miss the balloons they had a fantastic ride and worked extremely well in the north crawling rocks, unfortunately hard to fix leaks and punctures your just working on it from the wrong side,and as ADrew indicates the newer increased axle size and weight of the machines lead to larger mounting flange so fat cat tires history,still miss them and they looked cool.NCT

[Bill Gerber]

They were standard equipment on Attex until they were no longer available.
(around 1977). I wish they still made them. They had there issues tho. They would stretch when over inflated. So you had to measure circumference instead air pressure when filling, or your machine would not go strait. You could rip them off the hub while turning hard and throttling up thru a turn on a 500 Superchief. Every bounce would have a few after bounces, that didn't always work out very well. But that was all the suspension that the 6 wheelers had and if you didn't drive like a maniac. They were awesome. Needless to say they didn't hold up well on my machine. I ran the carlisle's at the time. Now the object is to get a soft tire that comes as close as you can to the balloons ride but still have a little tread for the water and mud. I still have a bunch but you have to baby them. They are old and the rubber is not as soft and strong as it was back then. Some are dry rotted. You could take your hands and basically get the machine bouncing like a dribbling a basketball while it was sitting still.